I went through this many years ago, my bank exchanged me "free checking" and "no minimum balance" for getting my statements electronically and not mailing me my cashed checks.

Then suddenly in the course of three weeks the bank was bought and sold twice. It was one of those things where a company (not necessarily even a bank) buys the bank, strips off the assets, and then immediately resells it to an actual banking company. All the end bank gets is the customer base, none of the assets. So they started charging me for everything suddenly. I called them up and explained "we had a deal" and they basically said I had a deal with the original bank, not them, tough luck.

So I pulled my money out of my savings and most out of checking and into a local credit union and forgot about them. Over half a year later I get a letter from the bank telling me my account was "overdrawn". I called to see why, and they said it had been getting hit with ~$5 monthly charges due to not meeting minimum balance, and as of this month it was at -$2.57 and so I told them to go away. I looked back at it and I think they nibbled about $50 from the account.

All I could think is wow, they sure didn't place much value in those new customers they bought huh? My bank is no longer a credit union, they've converted to a normal bank but they provide excellent services, good hours, easy contact, I have no complaints. (though their main ATM is in the sun and the deposit envelopes keep getting sealed by the heat!) They appear to be doing very well, I don't know why all banks can't be that way.

I work for the Department of Redundancy Department